Sightless Walks
by generationloki
Summary: Set the day after Loki first arrives in "Blindness Does Not Equal Ignorance" (see my profile). Tony and Loki go for a walk in a park and a bet is made. Part 2 of How Tony Finally Got Loki Into Bed.


**Author's note: Thanks to my beta Yara! I don't know what I would do without you 3 I hope you enjoy!**

MONDAY

Tony groaned and covered his eyes with his forearms, wincing at the sunlight.

"Urgh, my head..." He hissed. "JARVIS, what time is it?"

"2pm, sir. You've slept in all day. The others have gone without you."

"Gone where, exactly?" Tony stretched his arms and back, sighing when he felt he spine gloriously clicking.

"Mr Odinson's original plan was to take Master Loki out for the day to show him the city. But Master Loki refused to do so without your company."

"Huh?" Tony almost fell out of the bed at that comment. "Say what now?"

"Master Loki said that he'd prefer if they all went out together. They rescheduled their outing to see the city for Wednesday, which Ms Potts booked you in for, sir."

Tony gestured for the AI to continue. "And...? Where've they gone now?"

"The group has departed to Central Park, where they are waiting for you. So I suggest you have a shower immediately to get rid of your stench and get dressed."

Tony grumbled. He hated the park. He'd much rather stay inside and tinker with gadgets.

"Is Loki with them?"

"I believe so."

Tony was out the door in less than ten minutes.

* * *

He ended up walking to the park due to the amount of traffic. Tony mentally complained about the aching in his legs the whole way. He didn't have an AI to whine to. These legs were not meant to walk, he reasoned. I was meant to be carried by my loyal subjects.

How pleasant a thought, Mr Stark, a very familiar voice purred in his head. Tony stumbled back, nearly falling onto an elderly couple. He mumbled a 'sorry' and continued looking around.

"What the...?"

The voice laughed in his head like music. Magic, remember?

Tony furrowed his brow. I actually didn't know that, he thought.

Oh, Loki said. Tony could almost picture him pouting. Well, then, I have magic.

You can read minds?

Odin's beard, no! I can communicate with my mind.

And that's different?

Completely different. Are you arriving at the park soon? It's terribly boring. Thor wishes to 'bond' with me. It's terrifying. He won't leave me alone.

Be there in a sec, sweetheart, Tony replied, picking up his pace.

No, Loki admonished. No pet names. Not outside the bedroom, anyway.

Tony was almost running down the street at that point.

He didn't know what it was about the blind God of Mischief, but he just had an aura or a scent or something that made Tony's libido go insane.

* * *

He made it to the park ten minutes later. He spied the group of six under the shade of a tree, sitting on top of an overly large blanket with food laid out. Clint and Natasha were lying entwined with each other, their foreheads pressed together. Thor was busily chomping on a leg of ham, wiping his excess slobber on his forearm. Tony had to suppress a gag on both counts.

He frantically searched for Loki and found him sitting very closely to Steve, propped up against the tree trunk. He wore a more casual outfit of skinny black pants and a light green t-shirt with a large, leafed tree printed on his chest. Loki's toned and pale arms were uncovered, Tony's eyes raked over them with lust.

His obscenely long legs were laid out in front of him; one crossed over the other and his feet were topped with black converse. His dead gaze was pointed up to the sun and his hand curled loosely around the handle of his cane, which he had morphed into the standard white cane that the human blind use to notify people of their impairment.

Steve sat on his right, wearing his usual tan slacks and leather jacket despite the warm weather. He had a grin very similar to Loki's plastered over his face as he told an animated story to the god who was laughing heartily.

Tony raised his eyebrows. No, he was not Steve's god. He was Tony's god.

Tony stalked over to the both of them and forced a smile onto his face.

"Having fun?" He ground out.

"Tony," Loki exclaimed, turning his head toward him. "How good of you to join us at last. Steve was just telling me the most humorous tale about one of your past nights on the town."

Then, to Tony's absolute horror, he noticed that Steve's hand was on Loki's knee.

Not Tony's hand + Loki's knee = furious Tony.

"I'm sure that it's very entertaining," he said sarcastically. "Loki, could I maybe talk to you? Go for a walk?"

Loki shrugged. "Of course," he agreed. He picked up his cane and stood up, unfurling his Godly (pun not intended) legs. "Will you continue your story for me later, Mr Rogers?" His eyes were pointed in Steve's direction.

Steve grinned. "Please, call me Steve. And I'd be glad to. See you guys soon."

Loki beamed back and tapped his way over to Tony; the cane swinging across the grass like a weed-whacker. When he made it to the engineer, Tony turned to leave.

But then...

But then Tony felt a cautious arm link with his own. The contact of the slightly cold skin against his own sent shocks up his arm and through his body, wracking his body with tingles. He glanced down in surprise, his mouth hanging open. He looked up and was met with Loki's milky green stare. Loki's cheeks coloured and he smiled shyly. "It's easier for me this way," the blind man explained. "To navigate, I mean. Is this—is this not okay? You haven't said anything... you're quiet." Loki started to pull away but then Tony laid a calloused palm on top of his hand. Tony still hadn't been able to pull his gaze away from the frankly beautiful man.

"No," Tony said. "It's fine. I like it."

A toothy grin spread across Loki's face. "Then let us depart on our walk."

Tony lead the way from the tree with Loki allowing himself to be guided while still tapping his cane in front of him. But before they could even make it to the footpath, a very large and intimidating thunder god stood before them.

"Anthony," Thor boomed, eyeing him. "Where are you taking my little brother? Are you attempting to bed him again? Because you know my opinion on the matter."

Tony gulped nervously but before he could reply, his accomplice spoke up, "We've conversed about this only a night ago, brother," Loki said. "And I will repeat: I can sleep with whomever I want, when I want. Whether it is, say, the Lady Natasha, Tony Stark or our stable-keeper. Not that I'd ever be so whorish, of course," he added, quickly, a mysterious glint in his eyes. "Nevertheless, Tony will not be bedding me today. I have decided that I shall let him court me beforehand."

Tony whipped his head around to look at Loki to see what he was talking about. Court? Court? What the hell is that?

Thor brightened a fraction. "Well, then," he chuckled, "that is the tiniest bit better. But know this, Man of Iron," he raised a finger to Tony whom crossed his eyes in order to centre on it. "If you do anything to hurt my brother in any way—not even your mightiest suit will be able to stop me from crushing your skull with a single fist." He pulled away and grinned. "Have a pleasant walk. Make sure you are back before the sun has set. And Loki," he said, sternly. "Remember what I told you. No kissing the son of Stark. You have already been given special permission for linking arms. That is pushing the boundaries enough. Heimdall is watching."

Loki rolled his eyes. "Yes, brother."

Tony and Loki sidestepped the overprotective brother and continued onto the footpath. Once they were well on their way and out of earshot, Tony let out a nervous giggle. "Your brother didn't really mean that, did he? The threat?"

Loki joined him in the laugh. "No, no, he's too fond of you. Nevertheless, he wouldn't do anything close to what he did to Fandral, one of my earlier suitors," he said, staring straight ahead, looking slightly sad.

"What happened to Fan-drill?" Tony asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Fan-dral," Loki corrected, albeit politely. "He was hung by his undergarments from the highest tower in Asgard for three days until someone discovered him." Tony's eyes bulged. He was glad that Loki couldn't see his expression. "But I doubt you'd be as pig-headed as he was."

"Why? What'd he do?"

Loki sighed, shutting his sightless eyes as they continued forward. "He... um, he..." His voice lowered to a barely comprehensible whisper. "He tried to force himself onto me."

Tony tightened his grip on Loki's hand. "Who is this guy, where does he live and how do I get there?"

Loki laughed. "Tony," he said. "It's okay now. I think he's been punished enough. Oh, gods, I'm making it out to be worse than it was, look, it wasn't intentional, either. We were both intoxicated. I didn't have the mental capacity to condone nor stop it. And then Thor found us and well, you know Thor. He raged at Fandral and before I could protest he had thrown him out of the tower. Not that I'm approving Fandral's behaviour," he quickly added. "It was horrendous. I summoned snakes into his bed the moment he was returned to the ground. It was gloriously funny."

Tony nodded along, but still felt uneasy about the whole situation. That Fandral guy shouldn't have taken advantage of Loki like that; he was already vulnerable as it was. He pleaded internally that Loki wasn't zoning in on his thoughts. He had a feeling if he knew Tony was thinking of Loki was susceptible to anything, that Tony might find himself in a very similar position to Fandral's.

They walked for a little while longer, talking about little things like the weather and once or twice Tony asked something stupid without realising like, "Have I got chocolate on my face?" or "Favourite colour?" that would earn him an incredulous look from the God and a jab in the ribs with the handle of the cane.

"So, do you have any brothers or sisters?" Loki asked. They were nearing where they had begun their walk almost two hours earlier.

Tony instantly spat out, "Nope."

"No?" Loki pressed. "Single child?"

"Yup."

"Huh." They lapsed into a comfortable silence, with only the quiet tapping of the white cane and the wind whistling through the trees. "I really..." Loki began. "To be honest, I really couldn't imagine life without Thor. He's just been such a huge part of my life. I couldn't imagine being an only child. Was it boring? At all?"

Tony shrugged. "It's the only life I've ever known. I dunno, I've never really had many friends before. So being alone... it's normal for me, ya know?"

Loki nodded, a crease forming between his eyebrows. "Yeah, I understand."

"How 'bout you? How was your childhood with Thor? He ever sit on you? That's happened to Clint one too many times."

Loki laughed aloud. "No, no. Never. But only because he treats me like I'm made out of glass. It's very demeaning. I am capable of some things that don't entail seeing!" Tony laughed. "But obviously he didn't seem to get the message. Every morning I had to endure him strolling into my room and asking absurd questions like," Loki adopted a deep, manly voice, "'Can I help you get dressed, brother?' 'Careful, brother, don't trip.' 'Why are you walking around without your cane? You may walk into something and hurt yourself.' What kind of a fool does he take me for?" Tony nodded along, grinning at Loki's scarily good impression of Thor.

"So... er—what'd you do for fun up in Asgard?"

Loki pursed his lips and thought about his answer for a while. "I like to... read mostly. When I can manage it, though. Thor offers to read aloud most of the time, the moron. I try to hide from him in the library, but father usually has a maid or two accompany me around the kingdom. I can't... I'm never left alone." He scowled. Suddenly, he looked up to Tony's direction. "May we find a seat? I tire of walking."

Tony nodded, then realised that Loki couldn't perceive it. "Yeah, sure, over here." He tugged Loki over to a park bench a few metres away from their picnic site. The sun was setting, casting an orange-red glow over the park. They sat in comfortable silence for a while before Tony decided to continue their conversation. "Reading, huh?" Loki nodded, a smile spreading over his lips. "What'd you like to read?"

The god sighed and looked thoughtful. "A whole range of things," he finally decided upon. "I enjoy literature from fantastical tales full of adventure to intricate books about the sciences of the realms. I like to read anything I can get my hands on."

Tony laughed at Loki's enthusiasm. "Wow, that's... cool, I guess. But, um," he paused, for once in his life considering what he should say next. "How do you... well, read? Is there an Asgardian equivalent to braille or something?"

Loki smiled politely. "Not really. I'm afraid there aren't many blind Asgardians in existence. To be quite honest, I believe that I may be the only one with the impairment in the kingdom. I've never met anyone like me before... but I suppose my restriction in terms of where I can go throughout the realm may contribute to that. Father generally confines me to my chambers," Loki sighed, looking sad. "He's very overprotective." He shook his head, clearing his mind of the apparent reminiscing. "But to answer your question; I use my seidr—magic—to read. It's... difficult to explain but I run my fingers over the words and then they just speak to me." Loki ducked his head. "It sounds stupid when I put it like that. But that is the simplest way of putting it for a Midgardian."

"Oh?" Tony said. "Midgardians aren't good enough for you, eh?" He nudged Loki's shoulder with his own.

Loki laughed and shoved back. "You know what I mean, you buffoon. My seidr allows me to sense some things. Obviously, being blind since my birth, I can't ever really be able to 'see' anything. I can tell when there are people in a room with me and who they are, but I wouldn't be able to tell when, say, the corner of the carpet is upturned so that's why I have the cane. I can distinguish between day and night, but when we're indoors it gets a bit dicey.

"I can... I can tell where objects are. I can tell that there is a large tree to our right, but I don't know whether it's five metres away or directly next to us. I know that you're sitting next to me, but I don't know what expression you're wearing, or what you look like. So I can avoid walking into most things, usually, but I wouldn't know how close or far away they are, what they look like, if there's anything to trip me up... it's... discomforting, I suppose. But it's all that I've ever known."

Tony smiled then cleared his throat. "What did you mean by 'courting' before?"

"Hmmm... what is the Midgardian term... I believe you may refer to it as 'dating'?"

The inventor nearly choked on his own tongue. "D-dating? Who said anything about dating?"

Loki scowled at the space in front of him. "You really don't expect me just to have sexual intercourse with you without a proper courting first, do you?" He laughed loudly. "Tony, I am a prince of Asgard. I'm not about to whore myself off to some Earthly man. You must properly woo me first."

Tony hesitated. "You're being serious?"

"Completely."

"So I have to ask you out on a date before anything can happen?"

"Several dates, to be exact."

Tony whistled and ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah... well, that's gonna be tough... I just got out of a relationship, I don't think I'm ready for another go at the whole 'romance' thing."

Loki looked deeply disappointed. "Fine," he sighed. "Fine, then I'm sure Captain Rogers would be happy to court me. Steve?" He called loudly over to the picnic area, standing up.

Tony yanked him back down onto the bench, hissing, "Don't you dare bring him into this."

"Ooooh," Loki giggled. "Already claiming ownership? My, my, Anthony."

"Shut it," he growled, although his mouth was quirking up into a goofy smile. "You know what? You're on. I'll do this courting thing. Just as long as there's sex at the end of it, all right?"

"No guarantees," Loki teased, causing Tony to roll his eyes. "In order to reach the final stage of courtship, you must first win my heart over. Which is no easy feat."

Tony snorted. "Honey, I think I can handle it. I've probably had ten more years experience in dating than you."

Loki cocked an eyebrow. "You do realise that I am a god and that I have lived over a millennia?" Tony let out some kind of strangled cough that seemed to satisfy Loki. He started to smile widely and he twisted the handle of his cane between his hands, looking very pleased.

"Fine, okay then. How about this, if I can win your heart in the next two weeks you are here—don't forget that you're only here on vacation—then we get to fuck, alright?"

The blind god chortled. "Fine. And if I win, I get to take you home to Asgard and introduce you to my parents."

Tony's eyes bulged. "W-what?"

"Take it or leave it, Stark," Loki smirked. "If I win this bet, then I get to take you to Asgard and we must court properly. Do you accept?"

Tony Stark was not one to back down from a challenge. Especially if there was a chance for sex. "Challenged accepted!" They shook hands in agreement.

"You have two weeks to succeed in your courting, Mr Stark. I look forward to your attempts." Loki grinned.

Tony smiled and looked Loki over. God, he's gorgeous, Tony thought to himself, as Loki tucked a lock of his impossibly black hair behind his ear.

Tony's eyes wandered over the man's angular face for a moment until his eyes landed on the god's lips. He started to lean forward until Loki jerked from feeling Tony's chest against his shoulder. Loki brought his head up, turned toward Tony but his unfocused gaze was over his shoulder.

"Tony?" He whispered, before the inventor's lips lightly brushed against his. Loki unconsciously shifted his body closer to Tony's, almost on top of his lap. He closed his eyes and moved closer to the shorter man, so close that they touched noses.

Tony's heart was pounding in his ears and his limbs felt like jelly. He had never felt this way with anyone before.

He gently placed a hand on Loki's waist as to not frighten him off and went in for the kiss.

"Brother?" A familiar booming voice called before they could even begin.

Loki immediately jumped away from Tony, leaping to his feet and whipping his cane out in front of him. "Coming, Thor!" He tapped his way back to the picnic, leaving Tony alone on the bench feeling like a hole had been punched through his chest.

* * *

Later that night, Tony was holding a bottle of scotch in one hand as he stared out over the city of New York. He had gone out onto the balcony a half hour earlier, when he had learned that Loki had already retired to bed.

He took a swig from the bottle and revelled in the burn of the alcohol down his throat. He sighed.

Did I scare Loki off with the kissing thing? He asked himself. Was I being too insistent?

Tony flinched when he heard the door behind him slide open then the tap of a cane. He looked back to see Loki, stepping out of the tower to join Tony outside. He was wearing an oversized shirt and a pair of track pants that were folded up several times at the cuffs. His feet were bare. Thor's clothes, then, Tony mentally decided upon. He was holding his cane with his right hand, now back to its original black, and his hair was left loose yet tussled.

"Hey," Loki greeted, smiling brightly. "Did I use the mortal phrase correctly?"

Tony laughed bitterly. "Yeah, spot on."

Loki frowned. "Is something wrong?"

Tony sighed heavily. "Nah, not really. Well, actually. Yeah."

The god glided over to Tony and nestled himself next to him, resting his cane against the railing of the balcony. "Tell me about it?"

Tony shifted in his spot and let out another sigh. "I'm just... embarrassed, alright? I'm embarrassed of you rejecting me when I tried to kiss you."Wow, that was unexpected.

Loki was quiet for a few moments and in those few moments, Tony found himself becoming more anxious. "You shouldn't be embarrassed," Loki said, quietly. "I'm sorry that I walked away from you. It's just... the whole courting thing. And Thor was watching... I'm not supposed to kiss you yet. That first night we met... well, let's just say that Thor had a lot to say about that kiss." He chuckled.

Tony lightly bumped his shoulder against Loki's. "Okay, so we're both embarrassed. But we can still try this dating thing, right?"

Loki nodded. "Yes, yes! I'd love to. Shall we commence tomorrow?"

"That's be great!" The smile fell off Tony's face and he suddenly felt nauseous. "Er—" Tony paused. "Well, if it's okay with you, I haven't been on a date in a long while. Could we... for my sanity's sake... maybe call it a trial date?"

A flash of confusion passed over Loki's face before he regained his composure. "If you would like that."

Tony was relieved that he had agreed. They both stood together, shoulder-to-shoulder and gazed at the view—well, Loki stared ahead, smiling.

"This has been fun," Loki said, sincerely. "But originally I came out here to tell you good night. I think I shall go to my chambers now." He leant forward hesitantly and pecked Tony on the cheek, making Tony's stomach flip.

The inventor opened his mouth to speak, but Loki put a finger to his lips. "Our little secret," he whispered. "Good night, Tony." He started toward the door then turned back suddenly. "Where's my cane?"

Tony turned to look beside him when he felt his elbow brush up against something, knocking it from the railing. He whirled around to see the black cane whizz through the air down the side of the tower before falling to the pavement far, far, below with a faint crack!, thankfully not hitting anyone.

He laughed awkwardly. "What cane? You didn't come out here with your cane. I don't know where it is. Good night! Sweet dreams!"

Loki raised an eyebrow. "You knocked it off the building, didn't you?" He didn't look amused.

"Sorry?" Tony offered, sheepishly.

Loki chuckled. "It's fine. Do not worry." Tony grinned. "Now go and get it."

The inventor laughed before realising that Loki was being serious.

* * *

Bruce was very confused by the sight of a harried-looking Tony returning to the tower at 2am with a black cane in his shaky grasp.

**Author's note: Please review and leave ideas for dates that Loki and Tony should go on! Totally open to every single one of them :)**

**Follow me as an author for future instalments.**


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